My Life 2: Sequel to My Life: A Jordan Walker Story

Chapter 25: Everything About Eminem

Marshall Bruce Mathers III, (born October 17, 1972), known professionally as Eminem is an American rapper. He is credited with popularizing hip hop in middle America and is critically acclaimed as one of the greatest rappers of all time. Eminem's global success and acclaimed works are widely regarded as having broken racial barriers for the acceptance of white rappers in popular music. While much of his transgressive work during the late 1990s and early 2000s made him widely controversial, he came to be a representation of popular angst of the American underclass and has been cited as an influence for many artists of various genres. After the release of his album Infinite (1996) and the extended play Slim Shady EP (1997), Eminem signed with Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment and subsequently achieved mainstream popularity in 1999 with The Slim Shady LP. His next two releases, The Marshall Mathers LP (2000) and The Eminem Show (2002), were worldwide successes and were both nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. After the release of his next album, Encore (2004), Eminem went on hiatus in 2005, largely due to a prescription drug addiction. He returned to the music industry four years later with the release of Relapse (2009) and Recovery was released the following year. Recovery was the best-selling album worldwide of 2010, making it Eminem's second album, after The Eminem Show in 2002, to be the best-selling album of the year worldwide. In the following years, he released the US number one albums

The Marshall Mathers LP 2 (2013), Revival (2017), Kamikaze (2018) and Music to Be Murdered By (2020). Eminem made his debut in the film industry with the musical drama film 8 Mile (2002), playing a fictionalized version of himself and his track "Lose Yourself" from its soundtrack won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, making him the first hip hop artist ever to win the award. Eminem has made cameo appearances in the films The Wash (2001), Funny People (2009) and The Interview (2014) and the television series Entourage (2010). He has also developed other ventures, including Shady Records, a joint venture with manager Paul Rosenberg, which helped launch the careers of artists such as 50 Cent, D12 and Obie Trice, among others. He has also established his own channel, Shade 45, on Sirius XM Radio. In addition to his solo career, Eminem was a member of the hip hop group D12. He is also known for collaborations with fellow Detroit-based rapper Royce da 5'9; the two are collectively known as Bad Meets Evil.

Early Life: Mathers was born on October 17, 1972, in St. Joseph, Missouri, the only child of Marshall Bruce Mathers Jr. and Deborah Rae "Debbie" (née Nelson). He is of English, Scottish, German, German Swiss, Polish and Luxembourgish ancestry. His mother nearly died during her 73-hour labor with him.

Eminem's parents were in a band called Daddy Warbucks, playing in Ramada Inns along the Dakotas-Montana border before they separated. Eminem's father, Bruce Jr., left the family, moving to California after having two other children: Michael and Sarah. His mother, Debbie, later had a son named Nathan "Nate" Kane Samara.

During his childhood, Eminem and his mother shuttled between Detroit and Missouri, rarely staying in one house for more than a year or two and living primarily with family members. In Missouri, they lived in several places, including St. Joseph, Savannah and Kansas City.

As a teenager, Eminem wrote letters to his father. Debbie said that they all came back marked "return to sender." When he was a child, a bully named D'Angelo Bailey severely injured Eminem's head in an assault, an incident which Eminem later recounted (with comic exaggeration) on the song "Brain Damage." Debbie filed a lawsuit against the public school for this in 1982.

The suit was dismissed the following year by a Macomb County, Michigan judge, who said the schools were immune from lawsuits. Eminem and his mother lived for much of his youth in a working-class, primarily black, Detroit neighborhood. He and Debbie were one of the three white households on their block, and Eminem was beaten several times by black youths.